lilac;

Kenjaku just wasn’t sure where exactly he fit into the panic, if he had to admit.

Honestly, he mostly just hated the lack of control he had over his surroundings.

Yes, perhaps he was locked in on the realisation that he was profoundly helpless. Nothing seemed to be grounding him. Briefly, he had considered whether this was how people felt when he messed with them, or even took their lives, but even then, he could not find it within him to feel regret or remorse. Maybe this was a different sort of feeling, then, and one that stemmed from losing something he valued and wanted to maintain, than what everyone else must have been feeling. Fear? Panic? No. He could move past this.

Yet, the realisation of this led him to momentarily spiral, in a familiar way almost, in how he did before. The possibility of you potentially being amongst the dead was not something he particularly enjoyed, and at first, his mind tried to dispel the very notion of care, because you being gone surely was a non-issue, and even then, your final disappearance didn’t sit with him in the way he could handle it. He didn’t like the idea that just as things were finally starting to be less hectic, that somehow, he had led you to a place where he couldn’t control the outcome and he had lost you as a result. The lack of closure was suffocating. Besides, if you were later to be identified as a missing person, then it would still lead back to him. He had to prevent that, at least.

Of course. It was just that. Nothing more.

Even he had a sense of self-preservation.

Kenjaku made a decisive effort to tear himself out of such a pitiful stupor, catching onto the nearest first responder that he could isolate. He had successfully dragged him away without even garnering the attention of a witness amidst the distraction and the panic, and to his luck, it was a paramedic. The poor guy shook with so much shivering anxiety that he barely noticed that it was almost all over. Kenjaku made swift work of his end, crushing his head against the bricking of some inner alleyway, either knocking him out or killing him entirely in the process.

When he pulled the uniform on, he might as well have looked the part, though, considering how much of a mess he felt.

In a way, though, he wondered if he should have conducted a cleaner approach, because he might as well have printed his DNA on a stranger for the authorities to later find, but then again, he was already losing it enough without the consideration of leaving behind evidence. He didn’t care too much about that anymore, and so, regardless, stumbled forth into a group of EMTs, the sudden addition of someone they did not recognise giving them pause.

Though Kenjaku was quick with it. He made up some half-assed excuse that he more or less had been rerouted as a rookie, which was why he hadn’t been introduced to the teams just yet, and there were likely more on their way. He claimed that there was an issue with communication in an attempt to disclose the issue, because the scale was already overwhelming the hospitals and not reaching some, allegedly. The fake panic in his voice might as well have been what sold him, because his voice sounded far too rough, and the genuineness in it was believable enough.

So, when Kenjaku found his hands on a stretcher, he was advised to help gather supplies for those working inside, and he adjusted so well that everyone’s guard was immediately dropped more or less within under a minute. This part of the fake job wasn’t a lie to him, because he was in an environment that he recognised very well. Besides, it did not hurt to blend in, and in doing so, he was able to gather on and off snippets over what must have been going on.

One person, in passing, on the phone, said, “Yeah, it came from the inside, maybe planted?”

“—the secondary collapse impacted—” voiced someone’s news report, playing from their phone.

Two others in particular, much closer by, and far more approachable, however, were discussing among themselves while working, “Probably gang related, that two-face gang has been on edge for a while. No wonder.”

That was as good an opening as any, he thought, so he garnered the confidence to ask, just for the sake of confirmation, as a fellow EMT, more of the details disclosed from the conversation. Everyone else was more or less talking about it, so it wouldn’t have been strange for him to want to know more.

“Really think it was them?” he butted in, attempting to sound casual as he helped them both pick apart the debris.

One of the paramedics took the bait, answering with a tired voice. “Yeah,” he yawned, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “Who else but Sukuna and his guys? They’ve been threatening something like this for months at this point.”

Kenjaku found himself nodding along: a gang reigning siege over a city without enough resources or national attention/care to take care of its own problem made sense; besides, he had, at the very least, heard of the guy, even if only slightly. Though he did find that every snippet of information was oddly boring to him. He found that he didn’t care about all of the nuances as much as he cared about getting back to you, because everything else was just background noise. It was frustrating, he thought, because in order to get through this, he had to gather intel, but he did not care about the passing drama, for once. Gangs, aside from that, were predictable; he could likely piece out what sort of sloppy plan this was and just how easily it must have been carried out. He could likely guess that because of the scale, this gang was also done for, because the only way these groups ever stayed quiet was because they targeted each other and other factions internally, and only ever disbanded—either out of force, or leadership issues—due to taking things too far. Eventually, greater forces would have to intervene.

Another thought ended up entering his mind again, recognising that amidst his reluctant investigation, the police might, along the road, indeed, just as he had earlier speculated, look more into this attack and find patterns linking back to him, indeed. His face, picked up on the CCTV, was an example, and of course, maybe yours, too. The DNA he left behind on the person he likely had killed. Everything was becoming messy. He shouldn’t have taken you here. Fuck. He should have been more careful. Even if he did look different now, too, with stubble poking at his chin and his hair less than maintained, biological evidence was not something he could hide from. If that person risked waking up, too, he could likely recount what happened or describe the attack. All of this was down to just how perceptive people were willing to be. How… bothersome, he concluded.

Which didn’t even begin to cover the most pressing issue of all:

That he hadn’t seen you come out of the building yet.

Therefore, all he could truly do was keep on listening as a result, because panic in that of itself was useless, because it prevented an intake of information. He needed to absorb as much as possible in order to move the slightest bit forward. Though even if he hadn’t seen you yet, it didn't mean that you weren’t out. You might have been among the many who emerged with coverings over their whole bodies, because the damage was enough to have been fatal. You might have been grouped up somewhere and, by some miracle, have been recovering while he spiralled. You might have been rolled right past him while he couldn’t see anything but a lapse of plummeting control, and therefore, likely, could have been safe. He wanted to believe that you were in the final stage of that assessment. He didn’t like any other possibility, not even the one where you were alive and kicking, speaking to others, because that somehow conflicted with his guilty little desire of keeping you isolated to his side only. Ideally, you were a bit out of it. Ideally, you might cling to him, just enough to calm him down, to affirm to him that the control was still his to keep.

Kenjaku tried once more to keep himself steady, his voice coming out as both clipped and as precise as he could realistically manage as he attempted to weasel himself towards the hospital that the bulk of the help was going towards. He made up some excuse that the central line of communication urged him to return, and somehow, amidst the panic, nobody even questioned his motives or asked for proof. He supposed that he was lucky in that regard because of the collective panic, especially when each spoken response he could offer sounded relatively official and educated. Perhaps it was the case that in times of uncertainty, most people were content to accept authority and direction, because anything else felt unstable.

That’s how he eventually found himself riding off to the hospital, too, because there was more help needed on the inside than the outside, as it turned out, though he wouldn’t do a single thing, because his intentions were still selective. Thankfully, it was the one where all the initial victims went, so he would likely find you in it? God. He hoped. He would pretend in passing to move through where he was instructed to go, but he wouldn’t linger, and sure, he might grab what was needed along the way, giving them to the right person, but he would disappear into the sidelines just as quickly. The lobby, otherwise, even to him, was swamped with far more than the interior could handle, and he had seen a lot when he did have such a job. Far too many gurneys were hauled through the corridors for anyone to stop and think about him, the still undetected anomaly, as he worked to serve his singular agenda, which hopefully led him to you, among the fodder of everyone else.

And then soon, by some miracle, his efforts were rewarded.

It sure did take a while, though.

He found you after searching like a madman for what felt like hours, even though, realistically, it must have been far less. When time felt vital, everything felt either too slow or too fast, so Kenjaku must have been trapped within a sensation of both mediums. It felt nauseating to pace himself as soon as he recognised you.

That aside, he observed you to be sitting upright, though lying half-down on a suspended bed, which was a good sign already because you likely did wake up during the flow of things. You were likely also in a recovery pose, and therefore would be checked up on soon, which spiked urgency into Kenjaku, because he did not want others to check in on you if he could. This little hiccup down the road would be his burden to carry, if anything. He observed that you had oxygen tubing fitted under your nose and face, though parts of you were marred with the location you had been extracted from, so your body was still enveloped in debris, making the damage look worse than it was. A memory flashed into his mind, and he did not miss the way in which he saw you levitate earlier on, recognising that the fall must have been significant enough to hurt. He also spotted several other things, like the rasp of your breathing and the slight, small cuts around your jaw, but even the clipboard itself wrote nothing more than a few scribbles of inhaled smoke, being the bulk of the damage, so the relief he felt was very much immediate.

Indeed, you were sitting up. You were breathing. It didn’t seem like anything was broken.

You… were… fine.

He found himself stepping closer, his body guiding itself to you as if pulled by some unknown force, causing him to stumble just a little. His eyes moved around your body. He could, he thought, likely treat you privately. He knew how. The hospital was far too packed to focus on the people who had a better chance of recovery anyway, so it was a good opportunity, he gathered, to just pull you away and take you somewhere else. Besides, this part of the wing was empty enough. Hardly anyone was around by the time he made it here, and now, it seemed even more sparse.

Kenjaku, as a result, could not waste this opportunity—

—Already moving to fulfil his plan.

This meant unhooking you from the wires—carefully—so that doing so would not alert any such nurses by the front desk, though they must have been distracted by other matters. Still, he did not wish to risk any further unwanted attention. He wanted to go in, extract you, then get out as quickly as possible.

And, as he worked, he found himself even going as far as to fuss over you. His voice was low and annoyed, murmuring all sorts of lightly scolding, but almost nurturing things. “You’re fine,” he said once, before repeating it a few times a few moments later, preparing to lift you from bed. “You’re fine. Fuck. I’ll make sure you’re fine, so don’t you dare complain.”

He guided you upright, keeping you steady the whole time before slipping his hands right beneath you while hoisting you up. When he could finally step away and carry you off into the hallway, even though he was not familiar with this hospital in particular, figuring it out was pretty straightforward. Hospitals, in general, no matter where they were, were built in a certain type of way that meant directing people outward as much as they were designed to keep them in. A contradictory design, yes, but it was no different to an airport. It relied on a certain type of flow, of service corridors, but also emergency exits. He used guesstimation, mostly, to eventually find the outside, meeting with the now cool evening air, which finally caused a stir from you.

Not that you were waking up at all, but you did twitch. A good sign.

Kenjaku, however, continued to move quickly, not bothering to stop for too long. Like usual, his escape route had to be spontaneous. It would be too obvious and too attention-grabbing if he took an actively running vehicle, or even dared look at an ambulance, so he went to the longer stay lot, which was indeed, just like that of an airport. All sorts of cars were parked there, but he didn’t care for the modern type, walking quickly, trying to avoid the fleeting gazes of potential passers by, until he finally found a beat-up old model of a car that he could hotwire with some effort.

When—or rather, luckily, by some miracle—the car ignited into motion, he broke past the boom gate, gulping thickly as he did so, hissing at the damage, even if it did not stall the vehicle down at all. Maybe it dented the thing at most. He only really cared about being quick to get away. He didn’t care too much about whether he was being watched, trailed, or suspected anymore at all as much as he cared about reuniting himself with the only person he had ever met that made anything ever feel bearable at all. In that right, you were a source of comfort, and with you gone for that brief moment, he had nothing but himself, which he disliked.

Then, you stirred partway through the drive, waking up properly that time.

“What…” you started, sounding profoundly confused, your voice all rough from the smoke and the fatigue.

Kenjaku swerved over to the side, pulling over at once, hissing slightly as the wheels screeched from the sudden motion. Gravel crunched under the tyres, and right before he cast you a look, he only sighed, briefly pressing his forehead against the steering wheel before pulling back.

“You’re awake?” he asked. “No, of course you are. You’re fine. I told you that you would be fine.”

You tried again. “Wha—”

He replied instantly, sounding a bit skittish, as if he were afraid that you would hurt yourself from speaking. “Don’t talk just yet. What did I just tell you? You’re fine. So stop.”

You quietened down at his erratic mood, though you didn’t really feel the need to question him like you typically would. Whatever he said or didn’t say right now hardly mattered. You were still catching up on what must have happened before. Briefly, you remembered a noise and then heat and pressure catching up to you before it all went dark, then bright lights and the sound of machinery beeping, of all sorts of people prodding at you, but barely being awake to process it. You disliked how comforting waking up to Kenjaku next was, considering how much he had hurt you before.

Kenjaku, too, was going through something similar, oddly enough. His thoughts were eating him alive as he forced the silence.

Then, as if it were to break the quiet, he drifted slightly towards you, his proximity feeling a little invasive. He moved so eagerly that briefly, he was pulled back by the seatbelt, finding he needed to unbuckle himself to get even near you, but then paused when you flinched as soon as he tried to reel you in.

It was odd, he thought, because he was trying to be affectionate. He wasn’t trying to hurt you. He just wanted closeness. That was as kind as he could have been, and surely, you could recognise that.

He wouldn’t do that for just anyone, but he genuinely had missed you.

“Don’t tell me you’re still afraid of me?” he scoffed, trying to mask the hurt. “Seriously?” though, as asked that last word, vulnerability was very much evident in his tone. His composure wasn’t the greatest right now.

“I’m not,” you were quick to insist. “I don’t even know why I flinched.”

Kenjaku breathed out of his nose, retaining that disbelieving smile. “I guess… you’re probably still out of it? Is that it?” he asked, trying to think about how you wanted him to react, even if, deeper down, he wished that you would just accept the way he acted for who he always was. Like he did with you.

You shrugged in response, trying to calm down a little. “Yeah, something like that,” you said, feeling as your heart slowed after the initial reaction. “The sudden closeness just threw me off, that's all. I genuinely can’t tell you why I reacted like that, though.”

He sighed heavily, wanting to so desperately believe you, and yet.

“You’re sure it’s not because of that thing from way before?” he risked asking.

You blinked at him, biting your lip in thought, but still acting purposefully oblivious. “What thing?”

He blinked back at you, quickly growing annoyed. “You know. That thing. At that fucking house,” he replied. “I pushed your boundaries, didn’t I? If you’re still bothered by it, then I won’t blame you.”

You found yourself folding your arms, your body language retreating in on itself. “I mean, yeah, but it doesn’t really matter right now, does it?” you muttered. “What’s done is done, and it hasn’t really been an issue when we were out doing stuff, has it?” you asked, trying to sound convincing, swallowing a thick gulp of air down. “Besides, we agreed to move past it, didn’t we? At least quietly.”

“Yeah, and that’s the thing,” he added, his hands tightening on the wheel briefly before relaxing, “you don’t sound too happy about it,” he pointed out. “Look,” he continued, trying to change the subject and yet, at the same time, keep it relevant. God. He had so much he wanted to say. “I don’t know how much time we both have left, and I’d really not end this hating each other.”

You scoffed quietly at him. “Why’re you getting so sentimental anyway? Let's just move on.”

A laugh tore out of him. God. You were so infuriating, he thought. Why? Why? Maybe because he thought that for a good moment that you were dead, and he hated that idea. Maybe because he thought you were seriously hurt. Maybe because he had almost lost you and then just barely found you, and that alone was because of sheer luck. Maybe because you made his sorry life fun and he couldn’t remember the last time he was miserable, let alone bored, because your weird little mind full of unhinged thoughts was what was keeping him from losing himself for good?

He clicked his tongue. “Fuck, I don’t even know at this point. You’re the most frustrating person I have ever met, genuinely,” he said, almost in a resigned tone. He was so done with you. “I’m just… very certain that we’re in deep shit. That’s all. I’m so sure of it. I… left behind a whole trail of evidence. I think we might be going down? But that’s okay. I think I can happily rot in prison, but not if it ends like this.”

“What are you even talking about?” you asked. “Did you hit your head?”

He scoffed, reaching out to nudge you on your shoulder, finding some relief when you didn’t flinch that time. “Well, before, I was searching for an answer to what the hell was even the point of my existence, or anyone else’s,” he tried to explain. “I thought if I pushed people beyond their limit, then I’d find something out.”

“Or did I hit my head?” you asked yourself, blinking at the roof of the car.

“It’s hard to explain, I know,” he continued, pressing ahead. “People are all too desperate right before death to offer anything coherent, so maybe that’s where I went wrong. Whatever answer they might have had was likely just to get me to stop and let them live, but obviously I couldn’t do that,” he half-laughed. “But… with you, I think I have experienced something different. I have experienced a distraction—have experienced fun, and maybe that’s all life is. Maybe I’ve been chasing the meaning for so damn long that I have probably found it long ago, but have lost myself to it.”

“Kenny,” you said, softer that time, in an attempt to ground him.

He turned to you. “I’m not making sense, am I?” he asked. “I think I just mean that I have found my meaning and I’m finally ready to settle with it. I just want to… make the most out of what’s left.”

“Before you go to jail for life?” you asked. “Bummer. I’ll visit you in jail, though,” you added, trying to tease him to lower the tension.

“Oh, no, no. I’m going to make sure we both go down,” he vowed, suddenly looking both serious and mischievous at once. “I’m going to sink us in such deep shit that we’d both be severely guilty. We’ll be so unforgettable.”

You blinked at him, watching him get ahead of himself for a moment, before stopping, his voice coming out as more of an afterthought.

“I want to be your worst memory,” he said, “and for you to be mine.”

Indeed, this time, he was done trying to outrun consequences, and more importantly, he would keep what he had left.

At your cooperation, Choso let out a drawn-out, slow breath. Relief softened his face, which then melted into a wide smile, forcing the mark on his middle to wrinkle.

“Good,” he said, leaning back a little, not too far, but just enough to give you room to breathe. Then, he asked something that made you feel uneasy again. The brief show of space was a trap, after all. “How about me more about her?” he asked.

Your throat went dry. “More?”

Choso laughed even though it took a moment for his rehearsed smile to catch up, though it couldn’t have done anything to help. The whole situation he had you in was terrifying.

“Well, for example,” he started, reaching into his pockets to retrieve your phone that you so desperately wanted to reunite with. “Do you have any pictures of her on here?”

You gulped thickly, resisting the urge to lunge for the device and thrash around until it called someone, somehow, somewhere. Though if you understood anything about him from how he intercepted you earlier, you knew that your chances weren’t too hot. The fight was already lost in your mind before you could consider the outcome.

For the time being, therefore, you forced yourself to remain still and deeply consider each action and reaction. If he was going to take you out of this awful basement, then that much was at least something. It was better for now to make him think that you were, at the very least, capable of cooperating. You benefited far more from listening and doing as he asked, saving your strength for when it would be potentially needed.

Still, a darker thought surfaced, and it was one that you couldn’t quite ignore.

You couldn’t help but ask, “What… what are you going to do with the information I give you?”

At your query, Choso’s smile dropped for a moment. His eyes went vacant as if he had lost focus, his thumb briefly catching on the screen of your phone, lighting it up before it all went dark again. He exhaled a second later, though not so sharply. It sounded a little as if he was trying to hold himself back from a certain kind of reaction.

“Nothing bad,” he tried to say in an even, light tone. “I just want her to understand that you’re safe. That’s all.”

His eyes then drifted back to yours, searching the depths for understanding.

“Unless,” he caught, understanding the implication of your question, “you think I’m that bad?”

You swallowed hard and shook your head, quick to deny what you had almost admitted. There was nothing wrong with your question, though, you thought. You were just being a cautious friend who wanted to ensure the safe outcome of the person you were potentially compromising. Even considering dragging Shoko into this mess was already a tough decision, but there was no right or wrong way to react in the face of danger. You had no idea what you were supposed to do otherwise.

“No, hopefully not,” you replied, your voice taking on a shaky edge. “It’s just… I don’t want to worry her more than I already have,” you insisted, trying to forge a lie that sounded believable. “She’s been on my case for not studying so much as of late, and I do have that test coming up, so maybe to drop the issue, I could go back and—”

“Oh, no,” Choso intercepted you. “No need to worry about that anymore.”

Your voice died in your throat as you met him with a look of confusion. “I don’t?” you replied after a half-minute of silence. “I won’t… be going back home at all?”

Choso tipped his head back to look at the ceiling for a moment. He knew what you were asking based on the uncertainty in your tone, and it wasn’t that you were confused about going home or not, but asking why not, just unable to voice it. He had, he knew, gone about this whole mess a way he shouldn’t have. If he had been more patient or more sociable, he might have been able to approach you organically and build his affection for you from something solid, but he didn’t.

So, instead of replying, he just cast his gaze upon you, trying to get a read on you. He wanted to believe you were cooperating because you wanted to and because you saw the good in him, but your earlier question had already painted him in a certain light. He knew that you going along with what he said or did was not out of your free will, but a sense of self-preservation, and he knew above all, that he should be cautious to trust you, but he couldn’t help himself in how he saw you.

He lowered his head at last. “I won’t hurt her,” he promised, even though he knew that much was a lie. Your friend was an obstacle; she had to go. “I just want to clear some things up, then she can go.”

You bit down hard on the side of your cheek, struggling to take his words as truth as well. Shoko would immediately be able to tell that there was something off about him; you were certain about that, even if she had no idea what he looked like.

Besides that point, you didn’t want to put her life in danger by exposing her to this man.

Though she was still your closest chance of escape, because if you couldn’t get yourself out of this, then maybe she could.

Maybe she could use her quick wit to know what to do.

~~~

The actual disclosure of her details took longer than you both expected, mostly because your mind kept going quiet. When you were finally ready to surrender the information, Choso had to wait for a while before you managed to force the words out. He understood why you couldn’t just blurt it all out, though, in which you were likely terrified. He tried to be patient in that right, considering he was the cause of the problem. Though he wished that you would hurry up, of course, so he could resolve the issue sooner.

In the end, though, you managed to sell her out. You gave him the passcode to your phone and a vague description of who to single out of your followers on a photo-sharing app. After all, you didn’t have any photos of her like he initially wanted. Your camera roll was full of pictures of your drinks that you had on the way to class, cats you met on the street and a few silly pictures you had found online.

Choso stared at the profile for a long time as soon as he got it.

“What’s your texting style?” he then asked, hopeful that you would continue your cooperation.

You didn’t like that he wanted to trick her into thinking you were reaching out. The initial idea was that he would take you out with no questions asked, or so you thought. So what was this? You wanted to be taken to her, outside, not do whatever this was.

Still, you reluctantly muttered out certain snippets that could make the message sound convincing. You told him to not use line breaks or short, frantic messages, because you had a tendency of overthinking and preferred to group up your words into something that could be understood all at once. It was a weird self assessment, but it was the truth.

The whole time, though, all you could think about was whether or not she could easily get away from him should this all go south.

Or if she would hate you for luring her in.

Maybe she would understand, though. Sometimes it felt easier to reach out for something familiar than something immediately obvious, like the authorities. Maybe she could tip someone else off before meeting with him at all. A little memory surfaced as you considered all this when she said that she’s surprisingly good at singling out red flags because of who her friends were in high school. One, she described as a total arrogant ass, but his redeeming quality, that the cocky guys she might encounter during university, trying to impress her, was that he was a huge empath. Conversely, she also had a friend who was the exact opposite. A quiet and broody type who went through a rough patch, but the difference between him and the other performatively moody men she had met on campus was that she understood the layers that made him—him.

Maybe then she would see past Choso’s attempt and not buy into the deceptively kind and calm voice that he tried to put on.

Perhaps, also, she would be cautious from the start, because your disappearance was likely sudden and unusual, and now you would be reaching out, asking to meet somewhere isolated and strange.

Though Choso, for his part, did follow your instructions to the finest detail, even if he did grow increasingly frustrated when she kept on only choosing populated areas. Eventually, though, the two of them agreed to meet at a park, apparently. A large, inner-city one. It could either be crowded or isolated, depending on where they’d end up. For Choso, it was sort of ideal. The parking situation at that particular point wasn’t great, which meant that he could keep you hidden and lure her towards you, if needed.

And so, come the next day, when dusk barely broke through, Choso indeed pulled you out of the dark basement. You had fallen asleep by some miracle and had barely even noticed as he carried you away in his arms, only coming back to wakefulness when you heard something click and tighten around you and the loud hum of an engine igniting.

“You’re calm?” he asked in a reassuring murmur, buckling himself into the driver’s side of a van he had taken you off to. “It won’t be a long ride.”

Though as he spoke, and you came around with a heavy yawn, your body went into fight or flight mode at the sudden change of environment. Your reaction was not your choice, and you didn’t like the feeling of confinement after knowing fully well that you were essentially abducted. You reacted by thrashing around in the seat, pressing your palms against the window and knocking on the glass.

Choso just clicked his tongue, supposing he should have seen that coming.

“That won’t help,” he said, “mostly because we haven’t gone anywhere yet.”

You tried to stop then, but still couldn’t.

“But, if you make this difficult for me, then I might need to keep you, um, in the back,” he revealed, very hesitantly. He didn’t like that he kept having to resort to even more things that would frighten you.

That did the trick. The back? The back of what? You turned your head slightly, noticing the cold space behind you. An even bleaker spot where he could drive you back and forth to all sorts of dreadful situations. Everything about this situation was nightmarish, and you had missed the apprehension in his tone, hearing it as calmness instead, further feeding into the fear you felt. Calm? You could be calm. You could be very calm if he needed you to be. Anything but the back of this thing.

Choso gave you a moment to gather your bearings before pulling out of the road and driving where he needed to go. You tried to keep awake after the initial panic, but sleep took you on the drive. It was warm in the van, and the road was lightly bumpy.

Though when you next woke up, you found that you were parked in a cramped, isolated spot.

You couldn’t help but ask, your voice hesitant and unsure, “Where are we?”

Choso kept his hands on the wheel, staring up ahead. “Just… going to leave you here for a moment as I go to sort things out,” he tried to explain. “The windows are, uh, tainted, so nobody should see inside.”

Then, he reached out to the side, and for a brief, delusional moment, you thought that he was just adjusting something, or letting himself out, but then he presented you with a rope and a roll of duct tape.

“To keep you in place,” he tried to say.

Your heart dropped at the sight.

“N-no need for that,” you immediately refused, trying to back away towards the far side of the van where you sat. “I won’t leave.”

Choso’s grip on the items tightened, then relaxed again.

“I really want to believe you,” he said, sounding apologetic.

“Please do,” you almost whimpered, feeling the internalised panic claw up and rise from within you. “Please. I’ll be good. In exchange for Shoko being okay?”

Choso hesitated again, knowing he needed to make a decision soon.

(Further explanation because of the text limit in polls—)

Option 1: Shoko might not fall into danger if we manage to force our way out of the van, because we’re not tied up